“Bob, you better keep your thoughts to yourself or you’ll be hangin’ from the first branch of that tree come tomorrow evenin’,” Slim said from behind the tree. “Beau Luckadeau has staked a claim and you better just back off.”
“Beau hasn’t staked anything,” Milli snorted. “But I’m not interested right now, in you or anyone else, Bob. We’d better all get back to work or else Poppy Torres will hang us all from the tree.”
The next morning she saddled Wild Fire again and went to the eastern field to see how many round bales the crew had harvested. Bales were lined up end to end like giant worms along the edge of the fence. What could be stored in pole barns had already been taken out of the field. It had been a good year and Poppy wouldn’t be buying hay this winter. That always pleased him and her father. They liked the idea that their ranches supported themselves and no outside feed or hay had to be purchased.
After an exact bale count, she was back in the saddle and headed back to the house. After lunch she planned to play with Katy until nap time and then treat herself to a few hours of reading before supper and seeing Beau again.
She rode through the creek that flowed through her grandfather’s ranch and drew the reins up. The cool water rippled over a gravelly bottom and practically sang her name as it flowed gently along. It was barely deep enough to wade much less to swim but perhaps she could float downstream a little way before it was too shallow for even that.
No, it was insane to even think of skinny dipping. What on earth would she do if one of the ranch hands saw her there and reported it to Poppy? Maybe she’d just wade like she had at the lake.
That reminded her of Beau and she’d sworn she wouldn’t think of him for two whole days. It hadn’t worked. Everything out of Hilda’s mouth started with Beau and ended with the same. Poppy and Granny were nearly as bad. Milli didn’t fare much better when she was out working. Memories of the good times they shared kept popping up at any old time.
For the past few weeks they’d had a Friday night ritual. Dinner at a nice restaurant. Talk of ranching and then a steamy kissing session at the lake. If the latter affected Beau the way it did her, he went home and stood under a cold shower for thirty minutes before he could go to bed. Even then it took a long time to fall asleep.
It was going to lead to something, and Milli still wasn’t trusting him with her whole heart. She sighed one more time and rode Wild Fire across the creek. A thirsty old cow or horse can smell water a quarter of a mile away. She knew just how they felt when it splashed high enough and she caught a whiff. When she reached the other side of the creek bed, she pulled back on the reins and stopped Wild Fire. She stepped out of the stirrups, looped the reins around a scrub oak tree, and sat down beside the stream.
She laid back in the shade of an old willow tree and watched two mockingbirds flirting and flitting in the drooping branches. She dropped her hand into the ripples, the cool water tantalizing her hand. A little minnow darted in and nibbled at her finger, but she swished her hand and it swam away. She thought about how nice it would feel to put her whole sweaty body in the water.
She let her mind go as blank as she could, and just like it did every time she tried to erase all her thoughts, it threw up a Technicolor screen and provided her with a slide show of Beau. There he was, drunk at the wedding… in the bedroom at that trailer house… behind her at the dance on Saturday night… lying in the dirt with a three-wheeler on top of him and blood everywhere. At the hospital with Amanda pointing at the door and telling her to get out and not come back. And most recently, across the table from her on Friday nights, flirting and edging closer and closer to a physical relationship. But would that be all they had? Because if it was, she didn’t even want to start it, no matter how badly she craved his hands on her body and his lips claiming hers for his own.
She ran her fingers through her tangled black hair, drawing it up into a ponytail and wrapping a rubber band from her shirt pocket around it to keep it off her neck. She pulled off her brown work boots and socks and stood up. She unzipped her jeans and shucked out of them. Her underpants and bra she hung on her saddle horn. She stepped into the water and gasped for just a minute when the chilly spring-fed creek water hit her sweaty skin. She waded out to the middle and laid down in one fell swoop. A minute later she floated on her back with her eyes shut, letting the ripples flow over her naked body.
She hadn’t been skinny dipping since she was thirteen and then it was right here in this same creek, only a mile or so upstream. The stream carried her a few yards down away from her horse and clothes.
Although she could easily have spent the rest of the afternoon right there, duties called and if she didn’t report back in, Poppy would send someone to find her. But it had been absolutely delightful. Besides, Beau would be arriving soon. With a sigh she stretched her arms out and gracefully back stroked back to where her horse was tethered.
She heard his whinny and opened her eyes to see Beau sitting on the biggest, blackest horse she’d ever seen.
He tipped his hat and cocked a leg up over the saddle horn. “Afternoon.”
She scooted out far enough that all he could see was her bare shoulders and face, but the look on his face said he’d already seen much more than that. “Good grief, you scared the liver out of me. Where’s your tricycle?”
“At home. Thought I’d give Brassy a run today. I’ve neglected him lately. You come here often and skinny dip? Or did it just look inviting today?”
“Neither one is any of your business.”
“I’m making it my business, Milli. I want to know everything there is to know about you. And I mean everything.”
“In your dreams.”
So be it, he thought, mischievously. There was no way he’d lose this battle. Not in a million years. He had the sassy Miss Torres right where he wanted her and she could concede his victory.
“Turn around so I can get out of here. We’ve got a family date, remember? And I’m supposed to be at home getting ready.”
“Nope. I ain’t turning around.”
“Beau, I mean it. Pick up those reins and turn Mr. Brassy around. I’ve got to get home.”
“Brassy says he don’t want to turn around.”
“I’m not joking,” she, said.
“Me, neither. But if I was invited, I might join you. Water looks cool and it’s hotter’n seven kinds of hell today.”
“You’re not invited. And you’re on Lazy Z ground so get your sorry -”
“Scraggly ass off it,” he finished for her. “Nope, I don’t think so. Jim lets me ride anywhere I want on his property. I do the same for him. We’re good neighbors. Me and Brassy are just going to sit here for a spell and enjoy the sights. Right nice day, ain’t it? Not too bad here under the shade of the willow trees.”
She found her footing on the gravel bottom of the creek, and duck walked slowly backwards until she was only a few feet from her horse and clothing. “All right, if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. Come on in with me, Beau. The water feels wonderful.”
“You mean it?”
“Sure. Tether Brassy up to that bush and dive right in, honey. Like they say, ‘The water is fine.’ And I do mean fine, sweetheart.”
He didn’t need a second invitation. He threw his long, lanky leg back over the horse and stepped out of the stirrups with the ease of a man born and raised on a ranch. He unsnapped his chambray shirt by tugging at the snap closest to his neck and tearing it off in one motion. He sat down on the grassy bank and took off his boots and socks while she continued to dog paddle in the middle of the creek. Then a sudden bout of modesty overtook him and he turned around to peel out of his jeans. He did just what she hoped - turned around to undress - just like he did that night in the trailer before they fell into the bed. Those few seconds gave her enough time to scramble out of the water, jump into her bikini panties and shirt, swoop up her other clothes in a hurry, and mount Wild Fire from a dead run. By the time he’d splashed out into the
middle of the shallow creek and blinked the creek water out of his eyes, she had Brassy’s reins and was galloping off toward the Lazy Z with his horse running beside her.
“Well, damn it all!”
“See you later, Beau,” she called from several yards away and let Brassy’s reins drop.
Beau slapped the water again and whistled shrilly. The horse picked up the sound and came back to the edge of the creek. “Rotten, damn spitfire woman, anyway! I couldn’t live with her five minutes without shooting her or knocking the hell right out of her. And then my daddy would kill me for hitting a woman. Damn it all anyway, Brassy, if I ain’t the unluckiest feller when it comes to love. Just when I think maybe we might be made for each other, she…”
Outwits you. Admit it, you’re just mad because she got the best of you, and you wouldn’t like the game nearly so well if she let you win every battle. She’s a pretty smart girl and faster than greased lightning to be able to throw on a shirt, mount that horse, and steal yours while you were diving into the water.
“Oh shut up. I’ll make her pay for this. I swear I will.”
Milli reined in Wild Fire when she reached the pecan grove on the top of a rise a quarter of a mile from the creek. She had the rest of her clothes on before Beau crawled up out of the creek.
She fished around in the saddlebags until her hands found the little square case her mother had given her several years ago.
“A woman’s hands are small and you need glasses you can hold a long time without getting tired,” Angelina had said when she gave them to her. “If you’re watching rustlers or a mean bull, you might have to be still a long time.”
She zeroed in on him as he stood up at the shallow edge of the water, rising up like a blond Greek god from the creek. “I ain’t watching a thief or a bull, but that sure undoes the effects of the swim! That is one fine hunk of man out there. And I didn’t just imagine that mole on the left side of his bottom, either. It’s still there, and all that soft hair on his chest. I’d better put these glasses away and cool myself down. Betcha my blood pressure is higher than Poppy’s at a cattle sale.” She put her hand over her mouth, hoping the sound of her giggles didn’t carry with the Oklahoma breeze to where he was zipping up his jeans.
SIXTEEN
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SHE PULLED THE RUBBER BAND OUT OF HER HAIR AND ran her fingers through the wet tangles. It would be dry by the time she reached the ranch and no one would ever know she got caught with her underwear down around her ankles. Quite literally.
Well, almost. Actually I got caught with my bra on the saddle horn and my underwear hugging up next to a willow tree.
Beau wouldn’t dare mention it because he’d look like a fool, and she’d be hanged from the nearest pecan tree by a brand new rope before she’d tell a soul that she’d been caught floating down the creek in her birthday suit.
Just as she reached to open the back door, Hilda opened it from the inside. “You look a little flushed, sweetie. Them boots is muddy. You get them off right there. I just mopped this kitchen floor and your granny would have your hide if you traipsed mud on her pretty blue carpet. Katy is in the den with Jim. They’ve been playing with that stacking toy thing all morning. I don’t know if she likes her toys best or if her Poppa Jim does. What on earth have you been doin’, girl? Your shirt is as wet as if you’d gone swimming in it.”
“I did. It was hot, so I rode Wild Fire through the creek and splashed water all over us both.”
“Girl, you’re a grown woman now. You know better than to race a horse on a hot day and then get it all wet. Hummph.”
She stuffed her socks into a clothes hamper and padded across the floor in her bare feet. “Oh, Hilda, quit your worryin’. I let him cool off. Matter of fact, I shucked my clothes, hung my bra on my saddle horn, and went skinny dipping. Felt real good.”
“You did what? Girl, you ain’t a kid. What would have happened if the hay haulers had come along and caught you out there without no clothes on your body? Grown woman with a baby of her own acting like that.”
“Come on, Hilda. Didn’t you and Slim ever go down to the creek at night, shuck out of your clothes, and let the minnows nibble on your little toes or whatever else they could find?”
A smile played at the corners of Hilda’s mouth. “Get on out of here and play with Katy. And you be careful down around that creek, girl. Last time Slim and me - oh, never you mind. That ain’t a story to be tellin’ no young girl like you.”
Milli giggled and disappeared into the den where she grabbed Katy and swung her around until both of them were breathless.
“Well, aren’t you in a fine mood,” Jim said. “I’ll send you out to the hay fields again if it makes you that happy.”
“Poppy, it’s been a wonderful year. We won’t be buying hay all winter. The Lazy Z is going to support the herd. There’s the pole barn full of round bales and two barns full of square ones and the cows are going to be happy all winter. Wait until the first frost and we -” She stopped in the middle of her sentence. She wouldn’t be here this winter to feed the fruits of her labors to the cows. She’d be in Hereford, Texas. No more battling with Beau. No more fussing with Hilda. Just back to Hereford and her routine.
“We what?”
“Oh, nothing, I was just thinking. I better get upstairs and get the creek water out of my hair.”
“And how did creek water get in your hair?” Jim asked.
Hilda answered for her as she brought a tray laden with cookies and coffee into the room. “Oh, she’s been out there skinny dippin’ in the creek. Mary just drove up out front from the grocery store and she’ll need something to keep her going until supper, so don’t you two eat all the cookies up from her. I don’t care if you do have an appetite from swimming in the creek water. Lord, the bailers would have gone stark ravin’ mad if they’d come up on you out there without no clothes on. Or what if Mr. Beau had been riding by on one of his three-wheeler things and seen you? You better think about those things. And yes, girl, you better get that creek scum out of your hair. It’ll make it dull and limp.”
Jim cocked his head to one side. “Skinny dipping?”
“I told her she was too old for that kind of shenanigans. But does she ever listen to me? Nooo. Still sittin’ there when I told her to get up there and get that junk out of her hair.”
Milli giggled in spite of the sadness that nagged at her. Hilda would always be fussing about something, thank goodness.
At six o’clock sharp, Beau parked his pickup in the driveway. She watched him open the door and shake the legs of his crispy-creased blue jeans down to stack around his shiny boot tops. His hair was finally growing out around where the stitches had been. She could see the scar from her bedroom window as she looked at him. She couldn’t keep the grin off her face when she thought about that scar, since it was the last thing she saw before she conned him into the creek.
“Milli, Beau is here,” Jim called from the bottom of the stairs.
She opened the door and yelled back. “Be right down. Tell him I’m putting on Katy’s sandals.”
Beau’s grin was extra big when she entered the room. “Well, now, don’t the ladies look pretty tonight. I do believe your momma looks good in anything she wants to wear, Katy. I believe she’d even look good in a cloak of creek water.”
“Daddy!” Katy Scarlett reached for him.
“What?” Mary asked. “What did you say?”
Jim Torres bit his tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Either Beau had found her and she knew it, or he’d been sly enough to hide and watch the show and she didn’t know it. But she hadn’t gone skinny dipping and gotten away with it Scot free after all.
“I said I love Milli in that shade of yellow.”
“I thought you said something about creek water,” Jim grinned.
Just wait until he told Mary about it later. They’d have a good laugh. Mi
lli seemed bound, damned, and determined that she would be going back to Texas at the end of the summer. Nothing anyone said could make her change her mind and he was sure Beau had tried harder than any of them. He was sure going to miss the fun when she and Katy went back to Hereford.
Milli took Beau’s arm and steered him toward the door.
He resisted. “Why are you in such an all-fired hurry? I’d like to hold my daughter before we go rushing off to put her in a car seat.”
“I thought maybe you’d already been here this afternoon. Something about riding Brassy over to show her your horse.” Milli kept a straight face but it wasn’t easy.
“I thought about it but got distracted.” He turned his attention to Katy. “Daddy missed you so much. Two days is way too long to be away from you.”
He buried his face in soft blonde curls and a sweet baby lotion smell. “It’s just not normal for a daddy not to love his baby girl in two whole days.”
“Now can we go?”
“What’s the big hurry?” Jim asked. “Ice cream place don’t close ‘til ten o’clock. Come on in the den and sit a spell with us. You can play with Katy better in the den than in the ice cream parlor, anyhow.”
“Would you mind, Milli?” Beau whispered.
She couldn’t refuse him. If he’d asked to go skinny dipping with her in that voice this morning instead of being so insolent, she would have waded through the water and helped him peel those skintight faded jeans down over his fine rear end with a freckle on the left cheek.
“That’s fine. We can go for ice cream later, or not at all. You know we don’t have to go somewhere every Wednesday night,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She felt as if she’d just handed him the winning ticket to a million dollar lottery.
He sat down in the middle of the floor and put Katy in front of him. “What shall we play with first? The stacking thing or the telephone?”
“Stack ‘em up,” Katy said, picking up the stacking toy she and her grandfather had played with all day. She pulled all the bright-colored plastic donuts from the stem and threw them all over the den floor. Then she put her hands on the floor, her bottom straight up in the air, and stood up as only an agile toddler can do, and tried to retrieve all the donuts at one time. She dropped one, then another as she tried to hold all five at one time, then she stomped her foot and drew her eyes down, just like Beau did when he was angry. She carefully picked up the yellow one in her right hand and the red one in her left hand and earned them to Beau. She went back to the green one and blue one and finally to the purple one. When they were all in front of Beau, she plopped down with a thud and began fitting them onto the rocking stem.
Lucky In Love Page 17